Double Bass Looking for feedback on my concerto for double bass and winds

[taylorbass109]

Hello,

I have played bass most of my life and majored in composition in college, so I took a try at a concerto for double bass. The piece is intended for solo bass and orchestral winds/percussion. I wanted to see if I could get double bass oriented feedback on my composition. (e.g. "If I was playing the double bass part I would need this altered" or "I can't imagine the bass competing volume wise at section x") As a bass player I can play the concerto, but I am certainly not a performer and so I may be overlooking certain things that majors in bass performance may see as incorrect or not worth the effort.



Also apologies on how small the music is and if the piece is a bit quiet on anyone's system. I do not currently know how to improve these aspects. Thanks!

 

[Fredrik E. Nilsen]

Lots of great musical ideas! The first thing I would do is to get rid of a lot of the clef changes. Changing clef several times in a bar just makes it difficult to read.

 

[taylorbass109]

Lots of great musical ideas! The first thing I would do is to get rid of a lot of the clef changes. Changing clef several times in a bar just makes it difficult to read.

Thank you for giving the piece a listen. I really appreciate this advice, as someone who plays piano I dislike ledger lines, so naturally gravitate towards clef changes. But I can see how each clef change adds difficulty in sight-reading the piece. There are definitely quite a few areas (especially the opening) in which I can reduce most of the clef changes.

 

[icactus]

The part all looks very playable and I didn't see any place where I thought balance would be an issue. The Bach suite quoting was a cute idea. Also, I have no problem with your clef changes. If the line is going to go above A above the staff I think a clef change makes sense. Trying to decipher ledger lines for notes about that A takes more time than mentally switching to treble clef.

And a bass concerto under 10 minutes - who could complain?

 

[taylorbass109]

The part all looks very playable and I didn't see any place where I thought balance would be an issue. The Bach suite quoting was a cute idea. Also, I have no problem with your clef changes. If the line is going to go above A above the staff I think a clef change makes sense. Trying to decipher ledger lines for notes about that A takes more time than mentally switching to treble clef.

And a bass concerto under 10 minutes - who could complain?

haha thanks, I kept it short because the strings would have to be offstage if it was performed in a traditional concert venue (programming wise new composer works are usually allowed no more than 15 mins especially if relatively unknown). I am very happy that you heard the Bach quote! I'm going to explore options on the clef front; I know editions of Bottesini are written an octave lower for clarity, Koussevitzky in mostly tenor clef, where the Proto concertos have liberal clef changes. I want to find the option that allows the typical bass performance major will find easiest to approach the work. Thanks for listening!

 

[icactus]

Well I would strongly vote against the written down an octave option. Using treble and bass clef as needed is fine and if you feel you need to use tenor clef somewhere to avoid ledger lines then do it. It's not like people stopped playing Koussevitzky because the part uses tenor clef.